Q: Are there any particular hurdles that all adolescents have to face and overcome?

A: Adolescents have to face up daily to a whole series of critical experiences from

which they have to emerge positively. These experiences are crucial to development: to
personal growth, that is to their relationship to their own changing bodies and with new
impulses; to moral growth, that is the acquisition of a value system; to gender, that is the
dimension of their own gender identity; to relationships with adults and with the peer group;
to emotional and sexual experience; to relationships with society and its institution, most
importantly with school. The adolescent may well fail in certain areas of experiences, but
overall there must be a balance between failure and success because the definition of the selfimage is achieved through the positive feedback we get from our real surroundings.
Q: What causes or determines deviant behaviour?
A: When adolescents are unable to successfully manage a number of critical
experiences we have just talked about, then they become disaffected and this may encourage
them to look elsewhere for those positive experiences so essential to the definition of their
own identity, even if deviant. Such adolescents will consequently find success in experiences
which are socially unacceptable or transgressive. Episodes of transgression are a normal part
of adolescence but if these should turn into a constant behavioural model, then the identity of
those adolescents will be defined as deviant.
Q: Do males and females reveal different or analogous forms of deviant behaviour?
A: Boys and girls manifest their disaffection in different ways; boys tend to assume
hetero-destructive behaviour patterns, that is they direct their aggression towards the outside,
towards others and towards society in general, whereas girls tend to be self-destructive, their
aggression is turned in on themselves. Statistically speaking, adolescent disaffection is more
frequent among boys, who generally tend to give up more easily and therefore tend to build
up a sense of failure.
a) Describe the critical experiences teenagers have to face up to in what
concerns: personal growth, moral growth, gender, emotions, relationships.
b) Fill in the blanks with key words from the text:
1. Teenagers have to .. from a series of crucial critical experiences.
2. The adolescent may in certain areas but there must be a
between failure and .
3. We define our .. through the positive we receive from our
4. When adolescents fail in a number of these experiences, they become .. and
may look for success in experiences.
5. When transgression becomes a teenagers mode of behaviour, then their identity is
defined as
6. Disaffected boys tend to be . whereas girls tend to be more
c) Prepare the speech given by Mr Smith (a psychologist) at a meeting in which
he talks to adolescents about their responsibilities and new experiences.
d) In pairs, discuss the various points stated by Mr Smith expressing your
agreement or disagreement.